[Relationship between syndrome differentiation of traditional Chinese medicine and vascular endothelial function in patients with diabetic arterial occlusion of lower extremities].

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the relationship between syndrome differentiation of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and characteristic changes of vascular endothelial function in patients with diabetic arterial occlusion (DAO) of lower extremities.

METHODS

Forty patients with DAO were selected as trial group. Twenty patients among them were attributed to blood stasis syndrome (group A1), and the others were attributed to syndrome of pathogenic dampness-heat attacking the lower limb (group A2) according to syndrome differentiation type of TCM. Patients with diabetes (group B), arteriosclerosis obliterans (group C) and healthy people (group D) were observed as the control groups, respectively. There were 20 cases in each group. Endothelium-dependent dilation (EDD) and endothelium-independent dilation (EID) were measured by high resolution ultrasound in the 100 subjects and the changes of vascular tension factors were also studied.

RESULTS

The results showed that EDD in group A was reduced significantly as compared with that in the groups B, C and D. The levels of vascular contractile factors such as endothelin-1 (ET-1) and thromboxane B2 (TXB2) in group A were higher than those in the groups B, C and D, while the levels of vascular dilatory factors such as nitric oxide (NO) and 6-keto-prostaglandin F1alpha(6-Keto-PGF1alpha) were declined significantly as compared with those in the groups B and D. Linear correlation analysis showed that EDD was correlated positively with the levels of NO and 6-Keto-PGF1alpha, while the levels of ET-1 and TXB2 had negative correlation with EDD. EDD and EID in group A2 were declined significantly as compared with those in group A1.

CONCLUSION

Our findings indicate that endothelial dysfunction may play an important role in the pathogenesis of DAO and may be associated with syndrome differentiation of TCM.